Friday, December 31, 2004

Paddy's Sports View 31st December 2004

From "The Emirates Evening Post"


The margin between success and failure is often a very narrow one in sport. The edge that is caught at third slip is only a fraction of a millimetre off the bat different from the cut which speeds its way to the boundary. The free kick that flies into the corner of the net is almost identically struck to the one that bounces harmlessly off the wall. And in golf, at any level, it an accumulation of tiny differences of skill or luck which divide the good round from the ordinary. For a professional an opening round of 67 in a tournament will put him at or close to the top of the leaderboard whereas a round of 76 will have him struggling to make the cut. And yet there is only a one stroke every two hole difference between the good and the bad (and only a stroke a hole difference between the good and the really ugly!).

It is the tiny margins of error that make the difference in golf and that is why so much of the coaching and the self-help literature focuses on tips that claim to be able to improve your game by (say) five strokes a round. Now those readers who have had the misfortune to be with me on a golf course will know that a book entitled “Paddy’s ten tips for a better golf game” is unlikely to be a best seller. Not deterred I will pass on to you the one thing that I am convinced can make the difference to any golfer. It derives from the famous Gary Player remark "the harder I practice, the luckier I get". But adds that it isn’t the fact that you practice that makes the difference but how you practice.

We have all been there. It’s the monthly medal and you want to play to your best. The clubs are clean; the brand new golf balls (the ones with that magic combination of distance and grip on the greens) are in the bag. You get to the club early, find a place on the range and take the driver out of the bag. Confidently you strike a dozen or so shots with power and precision into the distance. Yes it’s going to be your day! On the first you congratulate yourself with your smart decision to have a work out on the range as you see your splendid drive twenty or thirty yards ahead of your playing partners and right in the middle of the fairway. Then you play your approach to the green and it catches that awkward little mound and rolls into a bunker. From the bunker your shot skims across the green into longish grass and the chip from the grass is still some way from the hole. Two putts later and you have an opening 6 on your card – two over par after one. Your playing partners, the ones with the wimpy drives, have two pars and a bogey between them – it’s you to drive last at the Second.

Now the reason that this tragic but familiar little story is told is in that other sporting clichĂ© – “drive for show - putt for dough”(not just putting, of course, but concentrating on all aspects of the game fifty yards in from the green can make the difference). How often do we hear a golf commentator say “Els (or Woods or Singh) has a wonderful short game? You all know these great players well – but have you heard of David Mobley? David who? Well he is the world’s long drive champion – he hits the ball further than anyone else and makes a decent living from demonstrating his skill. But he’s not on the tour – nor anywhere near it!

So next time you go to the range leave the driver and the rest of the clubs in the bag and arm yourself with a nine iron and a wedge. Look at the distance board which says 80 yards, not the one that says 250 and try and groove in the lob and the pitch not the drive. And then glance sideways smugly at the poor sop in the next position on the range as he powers his practice drives into the far distance and who, you know, is destined for disaster when he gets to the course whereas it’s definitely going to be your day at last!

Monday, December 20, 2004

Review of the Sporting Year 2004

Hail the conquering sporting heroes of 2004 -
From "The Emirates Evening Post" 20th December 2004


A pessimist’s look back at the sporting year 2004 would find much evidence of the darker side of international sport. Drug users, cheats and the customary gaggle of incompetent administrators have been in the headlines far too often and sport has all too frequently been brought into disrepute by greed and arrogance. But true to the spirit of the season let’s put these events to one side and concentrate in this review of the sporting year on the sportsmen and sportswomen who by their performances and the manner of their success have enthralled and entertained us. Let me hail my personal conquering heroes of a remarkable sporting year.

For me the heroes of 2004 divide into three main categories – the “Predictable”; the “Surprising” and (thirdly) those who have really “uplifted our souls”. In the first group we must include the extraordinary Michael Schumacher who won his seventh Formula 1 Drivers championship. Aside from his technical excellence behind the wheel Schumacher is also an absolutely key member of the Ferrari team both in track testing and in respect of the team’s overall strategey and race tactics. Whilst at the beginning of the season it was thought that Raikkonen or Montoya might challenge Schumi in fact his contribution to the overall excellence of the team was such that it was his team mate Barrichello who was runner up. Rubens is a good driver – but his success is in no small measure due to his team leader – as he himself admits.

Whilst Ferrari was a solid team with a genius at its head the same can also be said for the USPS cycling team led by the legendary Lance Armstrong. No superlative is too great to describe this astonishing man who has now won the Tour de France six times and overcome serious illness to do so. Whilst his win this year may also have been predictable it was none the less another astonishing achievement by this iconic sportsman. Moving towards the icon category is Roger Federer who, although comparatively new to top class tennis, was this year at the Schumacher or Armstrong level in his dominance. Despite winning three out of four Grand Slam events in one season Federer seemed never to let his fame and success go to his head. Whether the same can be said for the all-conquering six times Athens gold medallist swimmer Michael Phelps remains to be seen. He faces trial for a serious motoring offence later this month and we must hope that this fall from grace will be seen to be a sin of youth (he is only 19).

Phelps may be a victim of celebrity and there has been no shortage of other sportsmen who have appeared as often on the front pages as on the back this year. But let’s draw a veil of taste over the off-pitch antics of the football stars like Beckham and Rooney. Instead let’s pay tribute to a team whose success was in no small measure attributable to their collective motivation as a team as well as to their individual brilliance. The Australian cricket team have shown that they are streets ahead of the rest. The Aussies may be predictable winners – but they are never boring and they continually surprise in their powers of recovery when, just occasionally, they do get in trouble. One of my two “Teams of the year”.

In the “surprising heroes category” pride of place must go the Greek football team who won Euro 2004. This extraordinary success presaged a great year for Greek sport with the success of the Athens Olympics also being a surprise to some. That the games were well organised, secure and classy was a delight to see – especially as those know-all pessimists who had filed gloomy copy for months before the Games were all proved wrong. Sad that for the Greeks there was a sordid drugs debacle involving two of their stars athletes. But let’s hail the surprising and satisfying XXVIII Olympiad for the stunning success that it was. Similarly surprising was the emotional win of the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. Few if any of the Red Sox supporters were alive 86 years ago when they last won. My second “team of the year” is the European Ryder Cup winning squad who surprised us not by showing that they are good golfers (this we knew) but by showing that teamwork makes a difference even in this most individual of sports. The Americans lost because their whole ethic is individual – look what happened when they paired their two best players (Woods and Mickleson) together - they just didn’t know what to do.


Finally in this very personal review let me look back at those other sporting moments which uplifted my soul. Special mention should go to Sheikh Ahmed al-Maktoum who won the men's double trap shooting Olympic Gold Medal – the UAE’s first ever. Victories like this in the genuinely amateur sports such as the equestrian events, shooting, rowing and boxing are particularly uplifting because we know how much effort goes into preparation - and the rewards of winning are absolutly untarnished by the prospect of rich earnings just around the corner. This is even more so in the Paralympics which this year were the biggest ever and which attracted huge television audiences around the world. The courage of the thousands of competing athletes was stimulating and humbling and reminds us that there is more to sport than fortune and celebrity.

Last week I was privileged to be at a lunch in London at which some of the conquering heroes of the sporting year were fĂȘted. Along with the cricketers, rowers, sailors and athletes there was the seventeen year old Amir Khan boxing silver medallist in the Olympic Games. It looks likely that Khan’s success and fame will be an inspiration, as was Nasser Hussain’s before him, to all young Brits of Asian origins. This brings me to the sporting event of the year that for me that uplifted the soul more than any other - India’s cricket tour to Pakistan. As a neutral I was largely indifferent to the results of the matches. But as someone who believes that sport can be a force for good in a troubled world, transcending nationalism, religious and racial strife and hatred, the successful outcome of the series was a joy to behold. The cricketers of India and Pakistan set a fine example with their sportsmanship and their courage. I salute them.


Friday, November 19, 2004

Interview with David Morgan of the ECB published in "Yes No Sorry"

The England and Wales Cricket Board has agreed with the counties that they will not commit contractually to more than one overseas player for the 2005 season pending a review of the whole issue of non England qualified players in county cricket. In this edition of “Yes, No, Sorry” Paddy Briggs has obtained an exclusive interview with David Morgan, Chairman of the ECB to discuss this subject.

Imagine for a moment that Michael Vaughan had a gap in his schedule that would allow him to play cricket overseas for a couple of months. Imagine further that a struggling Australian State like Western Australia was in need of a class batsman and was able to offer Vaughan £100,000 for a short term contract to play for them. Finally imagine that Western Australia was able to afford this deal only because Cricket Australia gave them a substantial handout from the proceeds of international matches. Vaughan would no doubt jump at the chance, not only to get some hard experience of Australian conditions that would help him on the next Ashes tour, but also to make some handy money. It won’t happen of course – and not just because Vaughan’s schedule is unlikely to allow it. There is no way that the Australian cricket authorities would encourage the financing of their rival team’s players, and the State side has a plenty of home grown talent available anyway. But this situation, peculiar ‘though it may seem, is the norm not the exception in English County Cricket. In addition to the pragmatic signing of overseas Test players by the counties that can afford it there is also the issue of the employment of players with European passports – like Kent’s Danish born Amjad Khan or the many “European” South Africans (such as Nic Pothas, Kevin Pieterson, Greg Smith and Sven Koenig) who can’t play for England but will develop their skills and line their pockets with income generated by the England team.

Mercenaries

Let us take Kent as the example of the current practice and, although this county is in some ways exceptional, it is far from the only case of the current practice of hiring overseas Test stars and EU qualified players as mercenaries. Late in 2002 the county hired the Australian Captain Steve Waugh on a short contract which saw him play four first class and five one day matches at the tail end of the season. The gamble that this would lead to success in either the County Championship or the National League did not pay off and Kent was out of the money in both competitions. In 2003 Kent employed, as well as the Danish Khan, Andrew Symonds, Greg Blewett, Mohammed Sami, and Muthia Muralitharan – so over twelve months they had six different foreign players most on part-season contracts hired to plug gaps created by injury or other absences or to help them achieve specific short term goals. The hiring of Murali was successful in that in five first class matches he took 33 wickets - although in eight one day matches he took only a rather disappointing 13. Nevertheless Murali’s signing kept Kent in the first divisions of both competitions for another season. In 2004, when Mohammed Sami was called away by Pakistan, Kent immediately signed yet another overseas player as “short term overseas player cover” as well as contracting the New Zealand Fast Bowler Ian Butler and Symonds again.

The ECB view

David Morgan described the hiring of Muralitharan as the “gunslinger” approach to employment. As in the Wild West a hired hand solved their problems for them – although the choice of the word “slinger” has perhaps unintended other implications in Murali’s’ case! Morgan was less than enthusiastic about Kent’s decision and proud that his beloved Glamorgan has prospered without over reliance on overseas stars and without signing any players with European passports. But if Glamorgan can do this, why not other counties? According to Morgan the problem is to do with European Union employment rules which could mean that the imposition of any quota on counties could be ruled unlawful. He referred to the case of Maros Kolpak, a player in the German handball league, who was released by his club because of a set quota on non-EU players in the league had been reached. Kolpak took the matter to the European Court of Justice and the court found that, once a non-EU national had obtained a work permit to ply his trade in a particular field in an EU country, he could not be restricted from doing so by arrangements such as quota systems. Morgan said that the ECB was still seeking counsel’s advice on the implications of Kolpak for English cricket but that so far counsel’s opinion on the general issue was that EU laws were likely to restrict rather than support any intent on the part of English cricket strongly, be selection and by quotas, to favour England qualified players.

Whilst David Morgan clearly sides with those who want to restrict non England qualified players in County Cricket he points out that the counties are divided on the issue. Carl Oppenshaw, the Chairman of Kent, told me that both Waugh and Muralitheran “paid for themselves” by adding to the gates in the games that they played. Morgan thought this unlikely but did agree with Oppenshaw’s other defence of Kent’s decision that both of these players had helped Kent’s younger players with coaching and advice whilst they were briefly with the county. Oppenshaw points out that in First Class matches last season Kent employed 20 players who between them made 198 appearances. Only five of these players were not England qualified and their 33 appearances was only 17% of the total for the county. Dennis Amiss, Chief Executive of Warwickshire, shares this view and points to the time in the 1970s when he played for the county alongside the West Indians Kanhai, Kallicharan and Murray – an era when notwithstanding this England held the Ashes and got to a World Cup final.

It is clear that the ECB feels that their hands are tied on the issue of overseas players both by their concerns about staying within the letter of the law, and by the less than unanimous views held by the counties themselves. One likely approach will be to introduce some financial inducements which will encourage counties to employ, select and develop prospective England qualified talent in preference to the hiring of cricketing mercenaries from overseas. But as is always the case with England cricket, there will be much debate and no doubt argument before this becomes a reality.